New food safety policy. A mystery wrapped in an enigma.

Ah, yes, but this way you see they can point to this and say that they're doing something about these recent outbreaks.

Something.

Yeah.

reveres,

Have your bullshit detectors malfunctioned?

In principle, at least, they could do much more thorough inspections of 'riskier' plants, while maintaining daily (though cursory) inspections at others.

But then, how would some plants see the number of inspections 'cut?'

I don't actually see any issues with what they've written.

Inspection of meat processing plants is done daily (routine microbiological screening), and then may be done on several lines of carcases a day. My interpretation of the above is that riskier plants (worse records, riskier species or suppliers, riskier end products eg deli meats) will have more lines inspected (ie yes, multiple times a day).

Additionally, "inspection" is a generic term. Some, more dangerous, plants, may get different types of inspections (more intensive microbiological sampling, for instance - or sampling of more locations as per HACCP requirements, instead of just the "usual suspects").

To me, this looks inherently sensible.

But I'm coming from a different country. Your food industry has historically not been as well regulated as ours.

H5N1 = more risk to meat poultry and egg - not to worry !
Inspectors on the job! "No need to panic" "Industry is perfectly safe"
(insert photos of various US clucks eating chicken in 2007 here)

"The number represents about five per cent of the US' estimated 5,300 processing plants."

So, the other 95% will continue with the Salmonella, E. coli, campylobacter, ect?

""To continue to prevent foodborne illness, we have to improve our prevention capabilities, not just respond quickly after an outbreak occurs," Raymond said"

Try and prevent, maybe, but sure didn't prevent a lot of illnesses!
Raymond, 7 months is not responding quickly when something you eat can poison you or your family.

So for once I agree with Revere completely. For someone who got Salmonella back in the early 90's from contaminated chicken breast (I recognized it from having it in C. America-Ipecac treatment) from Sams Club. Turned out it had sat on a dock for an afternoon before hitting the freezer.. Shift change and all you know.

7 months is NOT surveillance. Be damned glad it wasnt product tampering again.

First, I think you need to realize that the FDA and the USDA are 2 different entities. The FDA is responsible for regulating Food, drugs, and cosmetics only. The USDA is only responsible for the regulation of meat, poultry, and eggs ( all animal products). So, the peanut butter, spinach...all fall under the FDA, not the FSIS/USDA.

The latest FSIS (USDA) announcements make sense to me. They plan on looking at those processors that have a bad track record of infractions closer. If you were to tour a selection of meat processing facilities you would see that there is a huge range of different processing plants, everything from small mom and pop butchers that could process everything from sausage to Hunters elk...to big processors of chicken or beef. It only makes sense that you not treat the apples like the oranges. That the bad apples need more tending than the good ones.

I hold the reveres in high respect but I don't buy this one. Not that the whole system doesn't need revamping. It is not efficent to have 2 agncies overlooking our food safety. Especially when some processors have both meat and produce in a product (ie. soups). And, of course they don't communicate with each other well. It's another example of a good and needed idea that needs a major overhaul to make it both effective and efficient in todays world. Like health care but only the food industry.

my $0.02

Amber: Yes, I know FDA and USDA are different. I'll have a post on FDA today. Maybe I was too snarky in this post. I thought the statements from USDA were nonsensical and internally inconsistent. While if you know a lot about how inspections are done (literally, how the sausage is made) you might be able to construe an explanation for this, their explanation was not meant to really explain anything at all. It was perfunctory and suggets to me they aren't particularly interested in making people understand what they are doing (because if we did, we wouldn't be much comforted). Without additional knweldge you couldn't really figure out what this was all about, and if you had some knowledge you still wouldn't really know beyond, "well, I guess this makes sense." But it only makes sense if you do a lot of reading between the lines and make some inferences about what they are really going to do that a reasonable person would do if he or she were the USDA. And that, IMO, is a risky kind of inference to make, given the track record here.

"Continue to prevent" seems to mean "Continue to try to reduce the incidence of."

In this particular case, it might be clearer if FSIS said, "We're going to do more meat plant profiling." (I think the general public understands the word "profiling.")

"And by the way, we are going to cut back on ____ , since we can't do more of X without doing less of Y, absent a budget or productivity increase."}

"Continue to prevent" is like skepticism-generating language in official food safety proclamations which imply that:

"Despite our previous sound science-based regulations which resulted in absolutely safe meat, we are now adding additional safeguards, based of course on sound science."

Another common food safety communication word which raises skepticism is "ensure."

In the service of credibility, I strongly recommend the frequent use of the word "try."

Despite Food Scares, FDA Cuts Inspections
Former Bush Official Among Critics Who Charge Cuts Threaten Public

(AP) The federal agency that's been front and center in warning the public about tainted spinach and contaminated peanut butter is conducting just half the food safety inspections it did three years ago.

The cuts by the Food and Drug Administration come despite a barrage of high-profile food recalls.

"We have a food safety crisis on the horizon," said Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia.

Thanks, Melanie. I already had it in the queue for later this afternoon.

It definitely could have been worded in a clearer and more straight forward way. I guess that having worked in the food industry and been the "point man" for many inspections I am used to this kind of vague language. I am not defending them, don't get me wrong. Unfortunately, regulation of the food industry is complicated. It's like the small town that grew from one main street to become a city of hundreds of thousands all without the guidance or foresight of good city planners, traveling from one place to another is complicated.

We've always eaten, this is not a new development. Regulation usually came after a problem appeared and as the industry of food evolved. Beginning with the USDA regulating animal products. Then along comes the Food, Drugs, and Cosmetics act and they begin regulating those things that the USDA doesn't.

The problem is one that many industries face not just the food industry. As our society and eating habits have evolved over the last 100 or so years regulations just kept being added. So now we have a system in place that is not well suited for our modern day society. We are saddled with a system that is inefficient, cumbersome, and not terribly effective at that. It's another area that really needs a major overhaul in order to address all of these issues.

Which prep box did I put those band aids in anyway?

They are not used to explaining what they are doing. This particular case, not practiced at the art of deceiving without asserting an active falsehood.

Possible just feeling a need to claim they are doing more.

The words say daily inspections will continue to occur as before. The words do not say they will continue to be the same inspections.

The words say "resources" will be concentrated on more "dangerous" plants. This affirms that the continuing inspections will not be the same inspections.

Probably less "dangerous" plants might, for example, be sampled less extensively, or less often each day, or samples might not be taken unless there be visual indications, or perhaps the labaratory which evaluates the samples will randomly choose fewer to examine.

Given the overall incoherence, one must be cautious drawing conclusions, even from the seemingly clear assertions.

Aside from the need to appear to be "doing something", the agency might be going along with pressure from the larger corporations to squeeze harder the smaller.

I think though that suspicion is aroused mainly by the amatureness of the apparent attempt to perpetrate some sort of deception.

Greg, Amber: My view is that the incoherence is a reflection of an incoherent policy that requires that policies be "thought out" only within very narrow boundaries of what is allowed by the industry and interagency politics. In a largere sense, they are poorly thought out policies. The result is a broken system.

I could have done a better job at highlighting the incoherence of it all, so some of this is my fault. Still, I don't know what they intend to do and they haven't told us.

You know what kills me about this? Putting shit out like this from the Administration is absolutely going to get it whacked by the Reveres of the world. Its the old, "How can the be this stupid?"

Okay, so its not one guy - Bush thats doing it. Its not a cost cutting measure, so why? They have to know if something breaks out that they are going to get handed their asses on a platter so to speak, so why?

They also know that the media is going to jump all over it when it happens and it will, so why?

This is the same thing that the FAA started under Carter that resulted in huge lapses in surveillance on the nations airlines, so why?

To someone somewhere this makes sense and its always cause and effect, money and politics. So who in Hell benefits from this? Thats where the collective guns should be pointing and have go off with the pre-written press releases for the inevitable. We are talking about Salmonella.... What if its cyanide?

So, the inspections will be targeting plants across the USA. Will there be any additional coverage of plants processing meats etc. in foreign countries, like the proposed chicken canning to occur in China?

Are the costs of inspections borne by the food processors, adding to their cost, or by the U.S. taxpayers, adding to our cost?

What's the impact -- will it increase or decrease the likelyhood that more food processing/growing will occur outside US borders?

"They also know that the media is going to jump all over it"

Perhaps they know the opposite.

"So who in Hell benefits from this?"

The airlines benefited from FAA lapses.

"Will there be any additional coverage of plants ... in foreign countries ... ?"

One of the main points of NAFTA and WTO is the elimination of non-tariff trade barriers, like inspections of imported food for health hazards, if it is certified in the country of origin.